Naturally I haven’t had a word from Ellen. She never has been willing to come to me when there is trouble. Then pride takes over. She keeps herself to herself, and it’s a foolhardy friend who tries to penetrate the barrier and offer help. Orin says that Nick seems to have gone berserk and got himself into a bad fight with three men from New York. According to Nick, they wounded a doe, an awkward shot on the flank, and he, Nick, killed her with a clean shot to the heart. But it was after five and Nick is standing on that, and that the strangers were not only trespassers but disobeyed the law and must be held to it and pay the penalty. Orin says they got plenty beaten up (Nick must have been beside himself with rage to handle two men alone) and have had their punishment. Cornelius says that Old Pete and Nick had no business being on our land with guns, whatever the reason, and he only half believes Nick’s story. The New Yorkers talk about suing for assault. So it’s rather a mess. I simply cannot bear the thought of a real rift between Ellen and me—and by now you can trust someone to have informed her that Cornelius is “after” Nick.

Nick, that gentlest of men! But Ellen did say that day we had our walk that he gets nervous in the hunting season, and that she is always anxious about him. He hates the “furriners” who come up for our deer. Who doesn’t, for that matter? But this time he seems to have behaved like a madman, a man possessed. There is talk of having him examined. Orin believes that until the deer season is over he would be safer in a hospital. He got a bloody nose, a banged-up eye, and strained his shoulder, but none of that could make an excuse to send him to a medical hospital, and Ellen will certainly bar the door to anyone who tries to take him off to Concord to the state hospital.